The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

@ Stolfi Then you have a serious problem—since these effects occur not only with “sh” but also with other letter combinations. 

Unfortunately, that disproves your theory.

Unfortunately that only proves that you will accept any claim, without checking, if it contradicts the Chinese origin theory.   

People still claim that Voynichese cannot be natural language because it has many repeated words and phrases, and "that does not happen in any natural language";

But recently someone tried to refute the SPS=SBJ claim by pointing out that the SBJ has more repeated words and phrases than the SPS.  Ahem....

And certainly not if `qo = "and" were the case. Because "and" has no side effects, since it’s a list

I don't understand this point.  Compare the sentences

• Lichee qumquat durian sweet nutritious
  

with 

• Lichee and qumquat and durian sweet and nutritious
  

Isn't the second easier to parse (for a Westerner) than the first?

before you start a list, no one knows that it’s about to start or how long it will last

In the spoken version produced by the Dictator, there would be hints about the syntax structure in the form of pauses, emphasis, speed.  Thus he would read the first sentence above somewhat like this

• Lichee, qumquat, durian: sweet, nutritious.
  

But punctuation was still like quantum computing at that time.

Moreover, the Author surely copied and edited his dictation notes when preparing the final draft for the Scribe.  If he did not insert the "qo"s during or just after the dictation, he would have inserted them at that point.

All the best, --stolfi